Thursday, December 13, 2018

This
will be my family’s first Christmas without mom. A weird feeling has inhabited
me knowing there are no gifts to buy for her and not seeing her stocking shaped
like a teddy bear hanging over the fireplace at my sister’s house. Certain
Christmas songs have left me weepy when listening to them which never happened
before. We’ve been combating that by telling stories about mom that make us
smile. This is one of mine.

Mom
loved tennis. She watched every tournament on TV, even the older, retired
players who developed their own tour. She always wanted to go to one of the 4
majors. Three of them were ruled out because they were overseas in England,
France and Australia and mom was afraid to fly. She once asked me if it was
possible to get to Wimbledon by boat.

That
left the last major of the year, the US Open in New York which is a convenient
3-hour train ride from where we live in Pennsylvania. Mom found a travel agency
whose whole business was booking tennis tours. They get you tickets, hotel
rooms and have a shuttle to take you to and from the tennis center in Queens.
The last piece of the puzzle was someone to go with her because this was
something mom would never do on her own.

It
was 1998 and mom caught me at a time in my life when I had money in the bank,
so I agreed to go with her. Our tickets got us assigned seats in Arthur Ashe
Stadium, but we could sit anywhere we wanted at any other court. One day we got
to the Louis Armstrong Stadium early to sit in a courtside box to watch Jonas Bjorkman
of Sweden and Cedric Pioline of France. It was a great match. It went 5 sets,
and the quality of play was very high.

At
some point during one of the change-overs where the players change sides, Bjorkman
was directly in front of us facing the other way. Mom leaned into me and said,
“You know, Jonas has a really cute butt.”

Now,
understand . . . I know . . . I mean, I get . . .

Look,
I know she had every right to admire Jonas Bjorkman’s backside. It’s just not
what I expected my 70-year-old mother to say to me. I believe I responded
“Ooooookay,” which made her laugh. Then she doubled down.

“I
know it’s a silly thing to say, but he does have a really nice butt.”